The Japanese Holocaust deniers

August 9, 2012 - Harry Eagar

Memorializing the bombing of Hiroshima is immoral and disgusting. It wouldn't have to be, but the way it is done is always immoral and disgusting, and we are treated to a replay in the second week of August each year. The 2012 display of historical ignorance, failure of ethical understanding and dishonesty is well above the usual average, however.

The Pearl Harbor Memorial is now adding a shrine to Hiroshima as part of its display. Brad Wallis, head of a private group supporting -- mangling would be a better term -- the memorial, told the Honolulu Star Advertiser, "The meaning of the memorial now goes beyond (Pearl Harbor) remembrance. It has become an opportunity for reflection on life and death, war and peace."

Wrong, it's become an exercise in false moral equivalence and a conspiracy to absolve Japan of some of the worst crimes in history.

Annual speeches by mayors of Hiroshima make this plain, but at least it is understandable that in a democracy the mayor of Hiroshima will always distort and lie about his city. It would require a politician of remarkable honor, knowledge, skill and moral candor to try to be different, and it is unlikely that even the most skilled and honest politician in Japan could succeed electorally on a platform of truth and reconciliation.

The Japanese, taken generally, do not believe their country did anything wrong except to lose during the war. A good example is Honolulu religious leader Takamasa Yamamura of the Myohoji Temple, who told the newspaper, "Our younger generation is beginning to forget about this tragedy (of) the 20th century. We must not forget about Hiroshima, and we must build a peaceful century."

This is disgusting. Except for a few far leftwingers, though, to listen to the Japanese the only tragedy was the one caused by the Americans in bombing Hiroshima. You will not hear from them that Hiroshima was the main military port for the conquest of China. Hiroshima was not a city full of innocent civilians. It was a guilty city full of people who were thriving on the plunder taken from China.

Yamamura's "young people" have not forgotten anything. The Yamamuras ahave labored mightily to prevent them from learning what Japan did. To pick one example among thousands: When the Japanese conquered Hong Kong, they herded 50 English nurses into the sea, then shot them dead.

The world would never have known about this crime, except that one -- just one -- nurse survived.

That was not even among the 10,000 worst Japanese crimes. Even if you accept the Japanese argument that it was purging Asia of European colonialists, what about the 100,000 Indonesian women and children who died in deliberately horrendous conditions in the slave labor camps along the Thailand railway. They were not colonialists.

It must be perfectly clear: Yamamura is the Japanese equivalent of a European Holocaust denier. He should be scorned and driven into the dark corners of society along with the other supporters of genocide and totalitarianism.

As for Wallis. It is understandable if unforgivable for a Japanese to throw in with the immoral story. Why a non-Japanese would join in is inexplicable in morally acceptable terms.